Harvard President Vows to Temper His Style With Respect

By SARA RIMER and PATRICK D. HEALY

Published: February 23, 2005

With his faculty threatening open revolt, the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, promised Tuesday that he would temper his management style and begin treating people more respectfully.

Professors, gathered at an overflow faculty meeting to hear and discuss Dr. Summers, appeared so dissatisfied with the state of his leadership that they rejected a proposal to have three senior Harvard scholars mediate the furor between the faculty and its president.

After five weeks of mea culpas for his remarks about women in the sciences, Dr. Summers issued yet another apology. He promised professors that they would no longer experience the intimidation, anger and hurt feelings that many of them have reported in his three-and-a-half-year tenure.

''I am committed to opening a new chapter in my work with you,'' he told some 500 faculty and staff members, according to a copy of his remarks. ''To start, I pledge to you that I will seek to listen more and more carefully and to temper my words and actions in ways that convey respect and help us work together more harmoniously.''

''No doubt I will not always get things right. But I am determined to set a different tone.''

He also promised to pay greater respect to the powers of the faculty on matters like undergraduate education, which he has sought to re-shape.

But the deep concern over his management appeared likely to continue, at least in private. Some critics said after the meeting that Dr. Summers was so damaged that his chance of being a great Harvard president was over. Others praised him as trying to reach out.

Although professors did not hold a vote of no confidence at Tuesday's meeting, as some had threatened, a university dean promised to hold a series of private, informal meetings between Dr. Summers and professors in the coming weeks. However, several professors expressed skepticism about whether that intervention would do any good. The next full faculty meeting, where the confrontations with Dr. Summers have taken place this month, is scheduled for March 15.

''He is the president; we need to work with that,'' said Cynthia Friend, chairwoman of chemistry and chemical biology.

''We need to find a new way of working together,'' she added.

Tuesday's faculty meeting was convened explicitly for professors to stand in judgment of Dr. Summers, for and against, and was the latest stormy episode in the serial drama of the Summers presidency. The depth and intensity of faculty anger was shown in a Harvard Crimson poll published Tuesday in which 52 percent of professors disapproved of Dr. Summers's leadership and 40 percent approved. In an effort to heal the breach between Dr. Summers and the faculty, a former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences proposed a three-member mediation team that would act as a line of communication from the faculty to the president and to Harvard's two governing boards.

Two professors rejected the idea as undemocratic and seemingly prearranged. The former dean, Jeremy Knowles, withdrew the proposal.

''I think an important opportunity was lost for the faculty of arts and sciences to gain some leverage to change its relationship with the president,'' said Theda Skocpol, a government professor who was to have been on the mediation team.

Most of the faculty speeches at Tuesday's meeting ranged from mildly critical to highly critical of Dr. Summers, but some supporters spoke in his favor.

Caroline Hoxby, an economics professor, opened her remarks by saying that the discussion was not about ''right versus left'' or political correctness, but about management. Some commentators have put a political spin on the debate over remarks by Dr. Summers that women may lag in science and engineering because of ''intrinsic aptitude.''

''Every time, Mr. President, you show a lack of respect for a faculty member's intellectual expertise, you break ties in our web,'' Professor Hoxby said to Dr. Summers, according to a copy of her remarks. ''Every time you humiliate or silence a faculty member, you break ties in our web.''

Leaving the meeting, James Kloppenberg, a history professor, said he felt reassured. Professor Kloppenberg said of Dr. Summers, ''He realizes he can't govern the university without the support of the faculty.''

Photo: Lawrence H. Summers on his way to a meeting with faculty members. (Photo by Jodi Hilton/Getty Images)